10,680 Global Sibley Family Members

Sibley Family History

This unusual and interesting surname has its origins in the popular medieval female given name "Sibley", a vernacular form of the Latin "Sibilla", ultimately from the Greek "Sibylla", a title borne by various oracular priestesses in Classical times who claimed to be able to interpret the wishes of the gods through their oracles. Virgil describes how the Cumaean Sibyl helped Aeneas to reach the Underworld to see the spirit of his father, by means of a Golden Bough, and in Christian mythology the sibyls came to be regarded as pagan prophetesses of Christ: seven of these are depicted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.